You were the one who stayed.When I became a comet tail of soul-searching, unraveling in the wake of our father's death --- you stayed. When Ammu folded into a grief too ancient for language, flickering between widow and maiden, unable to offer warmth or witness --- you stayed. You swept the floors of a hollowed-out home. Waitressed on weekends. Folded burgers and made sandwiches at dawn while I wrote poems in the dark. You took your paycheck and bought groceries, fixed the leaking tap, paid for the bathroom tiles. You picked up the pieces while the rest of us fell apart in different ways.In your eyes, I was the reckless one. And I was.But I see now --- what I didn't see then. I see the cost of being the one who holds. The one who doesn't scream. The one who doesn't cry in public. The one who doesn't throw plates or run barefoot down moonlit streets like I did. You bore the grief quietly, tucked between shifts and studies, in the places no one thought to look. You mothered a mother who didn't know how to mother in that moment. You daughtered a father who had vanished into the unseen. You sistered us all.And no one saw what it did to your body. No one watched how the inflammation began. How your centre started to fray under the weight of generations. But I see it now.I see you, Rozana.I see that you didn't get to fall apart. That no one gave you space to be the daughter, the girl, the child who also lost her Baba. That no one offered you a lap to grieve in. I didn't. I should have.I should've brushed your hair and said, "It's okay to cry." I should've cooked for you the way you cooked for us. I should've made you a space to just *be*. But I was too busy trying to find myself, trying not to vanish into the hole Abbu left behind.You were always the one who *held* the house, and now I see that the house was too heavy.You've spent a lifetime earning love that should've been given freely. Holding up walls that were never yours to bear. And now, in this middle age of motherhood, I watch you beginning to crack --- not from weakness, but from carrying what was never meant to be yours alone.I want to say: I'm sorry.I'm sorry for not being the soft voice, the hand on your shoulder, the sister who said, "I've got you." I'm sorry you had to be strong when all you wanted was to be held. I know our family doesn't do closeness well --- we inherited the cringe of tenderness from a lineage that didn't know how to sit with tears.But this is me trying. Cringe be damned.This is me reaching across time and silence to say:You were the brave one.You were the one who gave when no one gave back.You were the one who kept the centre from collapsing.You were, and still are, my anchor.I hope your children tell you every day how deeply they see you. I hope your husband rubs your tired shoulders and says, "You did good." I hope someone makes you tea and tells you to rest. And if they don't, I will. I do.You did good, Rozana. You did *so* good. And I love you. More than words have known how to say --- until now.